All The Glory (11 page)

“A snail … climbing … what?” His laughter died off, but his smile didn’t.

“Must we, really?” I looked around his kitchen. “Nice kitchen you have here.”

He pushed himself off the counter and walked to another exit from the room. “Come on. I’ll give you a tour.”

Thrilled to be moving on from my B&E and the picking up of turds, I followed him into the dining room. Jason might be a lot of things, but he was still a gentleman. Bobby would have given me the third degree until he’d gotten every detail out of my brain.

“This is one of the rooms we never use.” He gestured to the table and chairs that all had a slight layer of dust on them. The waning light coming through the back windows emphasized all the faults in the room, including a big scratch on the wood and fingerprint smears on a photo on the wall.

I moved closer to that picture, noticing three people in it. “Is that your mom?” I asked as soon as I recognized him as the kid. He was wearing a sweater I knew he’d never be caught dead in these days.

“Yeah. She had cancer when I was little. Died when I was eight.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I faced him, knowing that I didn’t understand how that felt but wanting him to see that I meant it when I said I was sorry. She’d died shortly after Jason moved in, but at the time I’d been so young, and death had been such a foreign concept. Had I noticed his pain? Did I see him grieving? I couldn’t remember.

“Thanks.” He left me standing there and went into the next room. The sound of the TV got louder as I moved closer to it.

“This is the family room. That’s my father. I think you’ve already met.”

I waved awkwardly as we passed through the room. Mr. Bradley waved too but said nothing, watching us go by for a second before going back to his program.

“This is the front hallway, powder room, and stairs.” He stopped at the bottom with his hand on the railing.

I waited there with him in the front hall, wondering what the hell he was doing just standing there and looking at me.

“Well?” I threw up my arms and shrugged my shoulders. “Do you have an upstairs or what?”

“I wasn’t sure you’d want to go up there,” he said, a very serious expression on his face.

“Why not? You got dead bodies up there or something?”

I hated myself a split second later for saying the first thing that came to my mind, but then I didn’t feel so bad when he laughed.

“You’re crazy, you know that?” Instead of waiting for a response, he preceded me up the stairs, taking them two at a time. His leg muscles bulged with the effort. I could see the movement of them under his jeans and it gave me a secret thrill. I immediately chastised myself internally for even looking. I was not here to cop a feel or anything else stupid like that. He really does have a nice butt, though. That was the first time I’d taken notice of that fact.

“There’d better not be any bodies up there, that’s all I’m sayin’,” I mumbled under my breath, taking the stairs like a normal person. I liked listening to him laugh, and I felt like a million bucks when he did it again.

Chapter Twenty

“THAT’S MY DAD’S ROOM,” HE said, pointing down the hall to the right. “That’s the bathroom and laundry room,” he said, pointing to the door in front of us. “And that’s my bedroom.” He walked down the hall to the left a little and stopped in an open doorway.

My feet made whispering sounds as I made my way down the carpeted hall. I stopped opposite Jason and leaned into his room with just my head. I wondered how many other girls from school had gotten this far into Jason’s life. Probably a few.

“Definitely a guy’s room,” I said, my nose scrunching up as I took in all the dust and trophies. It was the best I could come up with as far as a response. Not very witty, but functional. That’s me.

“Does it smell?” he asked.

I looked up to find him serious. “Smell?”

His expression changed, and I could have sworn I saw embarrassment before his cool mask went on again. “I just thought … you said it was a guy’s … never mind.”

I walked inside it, not sure he wanted me there, but going anyway.
 
Lifting my nose, I gave the air a good whiff. “It does smell, now that you mention it.”

“Shut up,” he said, coming in behind me. His dissipating embarrassment was still present in his voice. It gave me courage.

“It smells like … cologne …,” I turned slowly, keeping my nose in the air, “… an Airwick apple-scented candle and … shoes.” I finished sniffing and smiled at him. “Smelly ones.”

“You’re ridiculous,” he said, jumping up and landing on his back on the bed.

I walked over to his desk and ran my hand over some of his things. There was a blue spiral notebook that looked hardly used, a keyboard to a computer that wasn’t there anymore — the cords where hanging out of a hole in his desk — and a pen. The rest of the surface was empty and dusty. I slowly drew my name in it.
K-A-T-Y.
I put a heart after my name without thinking and then quickly rubbed it away before he could see it.

Hearts? Are you serious?

“What happened to the ‘puter?” I asked, running my hand over the notebook and away from the evidence of my serious lack of maturity. I really wanted to look inside the book but felt like it would be pushing the boundaries of privacy to turn the cover over.

“Confiscated. Evidence, I guess.”

The truth of why I was there — nerd girl from down the street running her fingers over his stuff like she belonged there, drawing hearts in the dust — came right to the forefront.

I turned to look at him and lowered myself into his desk chair. I hugged the back of it and rested my chin on the top rung of the seat’s ladder back. “What else did they take?” When I realized that with every word my head was bouncing up like some kind of freaky puppet, I moved my arms to rest there instead.

He laced his hands behind his head and kind of shrugged, his arms flopping up like chicken wings, as he acted like it was an easy question. “Shit that doesn’t matter. None of it matters.”

He shifted his gaze to the ceiling.

“Are you glad to be back home?” I asked, my voice annoyingly soft.

“Yes and no.” He sighed loudly.

I tried not to take it as a sign that I was irritating the hell out of him with my questions.

“Why no? I’d think you’d be much happier to be here than in … you know.” I couldn’t say the word. It was so harsh. So awful. So real for him and not for me.

“You can say it,” he said, looking at me now. “Prison. I was in prison. I
belong
in prison.”

“I wish you’d quit saying that.” I was kind of mad at him at that point, being so harsh and so blatantly in-my-face about the whole thing.
 
Couldn’t he pretend for a few minutes even for himself that it wasn’t as bad as it really was? It made me glare when I really didn’t mean to.

“Why?” he asked. “It’s the truth.”

“Yeah, let’s talk about the truth.” My tone was taunting. “Like why you’re telling everyone that you’re guilty.”

Boom!
Yes, I did that. I dropped that truth-bomb right there in the middle of his bedroom, right in his face. No more beating around the bush. It was time to get ugly, apparently. I had no idea what I was thinking except that I probably wasn’t … thinking, that is.

He sat up and turned sideways on the bed, staring into the palms of his hands. “I’m telling the truth.” He looked over at me, and all I could see was anguish there. “If you’re living in some kind of fantasy world where I admit secretly to you that I didn’t do it, you need to wake the hell up. Go home and go on with your life without me in it.”

I swallowed with difficulty. Not because I was scared, exactly, but because he was being so intense. And we were talking about murder, after all.

“I’m not,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

“Then why do you keep talking about it? Do you think I’m not torturing myself enough that you need to add to it?”

“I’m not trying to torture you, Jason.” A mixture of embarrassment, anger, and sadness was just about overwhelming me. I was completely out of my league here. Tears threatened. Why did I think I could manage this? I must have been high on permanent marker.

“Then why?” he asked, sounding almost as tortured as I felt.

“Because!” I shouted, before I could get control of my volume.

We both looked at the door, but nothing happened. I was hoping Mr. Bradley’s television was too loud for him to hear me freaking out.

“Because,” I said more normally. “I know you.”

He stared at me for a long time after that. His jaw muscles got really tense and then they relaxed. Then they tensed up again. His eyes became very bloodshot and filled with tears that didn’t fall.

“I have spent the better part of ten years ignoring you,” he said finally, his voice very hoarse.

My heart kind of broke there. For both of us. There was no use denying the truth.

“On purpose?” I asked, waiting for him to confirm my worst fears … that I’m so lame and so dorky, a person would purposely go out of his way to
not
interact with me. A murderer, no less.

He shook his head. “No. Not on purpose.”

I shrugged, relief washing over me. I hate it when my insecurities get the better of me like they did in that moment. I knew I shouldn’t care what other people thought of me, but I couldn’t help being human, being a person who wanted to be liked.

“But I did that,” Jason continued. “I ignored you. We’ve lived right down the street from each other since we were kids.”

“So?” I shrugged again, trying to make him feel better for being kind of a stuck-up jerk. “Lots of people live in the ‘hood and don’t hang out with me. I’m cool with that.”

“Not right here on our street. I could have given you a lift to school.”

“I already had a lift to school.”
Usually
. I left that part out. My car wasn’t the most reliable and Bobby’s mom didn’t always give him hers.

“Stop trying to make me feel better,” he said, sounding pissed.

I took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. I couldn’t have a normal conversation with him because I was constantly thinking that I had to watch what I said. I’d already stuck my foot in my mouth enough for one night. For one lifetime, really. But I felt like he needed to know where I was coming from. That’s why I kept talking when I probably should have just shut up and nodded.

“I’m not trying to make you feel better. Maybe you should feel like a dick because you didn’t talk to me or give me a ride or whatever … but that’s how it’s done, right? I mean, everyone does that. You’re not any more of a jerk than anyone else in your situation is.”

“In my situation?”

I stared at him blinking several times in rapid succession, waiting for him to stop playing idiot with me. But he just kept staring back, like he expected me to fill him in on the details.

“You know what I’m talking about. Don’t make me say it.” Now I was embarrassed, like it was my fault, like I was the one doing the judging all along.

“No, I really don’t.” He looked kind of confused and really charming.

How does a girl tell a guy all about himself without sounding like a bitch? I wasn’t sure then and I’m still not sure now. But I gave it a shot anyway because I was the queen of saying shit I shouldn’t.

“Jason, you have it all.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know what I mean. You have it all. Just like all your friends. You guys are in all your glory.”

“My friends? Glory? What?”

I was getting more mad at him, each time he parroted something back at me.

“Yes. Your friends. Your girlfriend. Her friends. You guys have it all. All the glory.”

“What is this
all
of which you speak?” A tiny smile quirked up the edge of his mouth.

I wasn’t going to be placated by his charm, though. He was mocking me and it pissed me off. “You have popularity, looks, athletic talent, a great family …”

“Hold up, hold up …” He held his hand out in between us. “Back up … I have what? Say that stuff again … I think I missed something.”

He was totally luring me in and I was the one dumb enough to dig the hole to fall into.

“Popularity?” I said, my neck starting to get hot.

“No, not that one…”

“Athletic talent?” My voice started squeaking.

“Nooope. Not that one either.”

“A good family?” My face was so red at this point I was sweating.

He shook his head, a barely concealed and very satisfied smile taunting me. “No, there was something else you said…”

“Nope, that’s all I said. You must be mistaken.”

“You said
looks
.”

I frowned, like he was nuts. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. You said I have looks.”

I shook my head, channeling pity into my eyes as best I could. “See, that’s your conceit coming out again. You thought I said that, but I didn’t. I said
books
. You have books.” I gestured to his shelves that actually only had trophies on them.

“Ah,” he said, nodding, “I see. So I
don’t
have looks.”

“No.”

“I’m just butt-ugly, is that it?”

Finally the heat in my face started to calm down. He wasn’t mocking me anymore. It was more like he was mocking himself, which I was much more comfortable with.

“No, you’re not
butt
-ugly. I mean … I wouldn’t use the word
butt
necessarily.”

Both of us sat there trying not to be the one to laugh first. For a few seconds I thought we were just going to be best buds now, smiling and laughing and joking around.

But then his face fell, and the happiness I thought I’d seen was replaced with anger.

“Why are you here?” he asked.

I wrestled with myself for a second or two trying to find the right answer. Maybe it was ten seconds. I struggled mainly because I wasn’t even really sure of the answer myself, but also because I could tell he was in a very vulnerable place. I didn’t want to be the one to injure him more than he was already injured.

“I just thought you could use a friend.”

“And you’re my friend.” He was staring at me, like he was testing me. Maybe like he wasn’t sure he believed it himself.